Urgent Moments
Art and social change: The Letting Space projects 2010–2020
Author: Mark Amery, Sophie Jerram and Amber Clausner
Insights into a ground-breaking and long-running arts intervention project Of deep interest to the general arts and community activist audience* Introduction by well-known American arts writer Chris Kraus
The story of a remarkable art activation
Paperback
PRODUCT INFORMATION
Summary
- Insights into a ground-breaking and long-running arts intervention project Of deep interest to the general arts and community activist audience Introduction by well-known American arts writer Chris Kraus
The story of a remarkable art activation
Description
After first occupying vacant spaces in post-stock-market-crash Auckland in the mid-1990s, public art curators Letting Space re-emerged in the wake of the 2008 global financial crisis. Confronted by the thin net of social welfare, the waste of the capitalist system and the climate emergency, it brokered spaces for artists to think and act radically, outside gallery walls. This book chronicles the projects those artists drove. From a grocery store where everything was free to an ATM for depositing moods and a citizens' water-testing lab, they added to the civic dialogue at a time when public space and media were increasingly commodified and under surveillance. Written by leading New Zealand writers and thinkers, including Pip Adam and Chris Kraus, Urgent Moments demonstrates the vital role artists can play in the pressing discussions of our times.
Critic Reviews
‘This is a lively, readable, thought-provoking and occasionally funny account of the central and important subject matter: art that doesn't just “raise questions” but frequently posits answers’ — Graham Reid, Kete Books
About the Author
Mark Amery is a writer, producer, curator and facilitator who works across the public arts and media with a focus on new forms of participation. Co-founder of Letting Space, Paekākāriki.nz and Paekākāriki FM 88.2, Amery works at RNZ and as a contributing arts editor for The Post. He is a member of the Wellington City Council Public Art Panel and in 2022 completed a public art project, The People’s Voice, with Wellington social housing residents.
Sophie Jerram works with artists in community, government and academic roles. Following the Letting Space and Urban Dream projects she completed a PhD in spatial commoning at the University of Copenhagen and Victoria University of Wellington. She is a founding trustee of the Vogelmorn Community Group in Wellington. She currently works as the aho tini (arts strategy) implementation manager at Wellington City Council, and as curator/researcher at Toi Taiao Whakatairanga University of Auckland.
Amber Clausner is a British arts producer based in Te Whanganui-a-tara, Wellington. She ran artist-run space MEANWHILE between 2019 and 2022 and has co-produced projects such as CubaDupa (Public Art Curator, 2023), Asian Aotearoa Arts Huī (2018 and 2022) and Shared Lines (2019 and 2020). Amber currently works as an organiser for E tū union.
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